, in Browning's phrase, "grown old along with me,"
but for the forethought of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., in limiting
its serial flow to twelve numbers of _The Cornhill Magazine_
As it is, I have added a few chapters; but a hundred and fifty
episodes remain unwritten, with the courtships of Mr. Priske, and the
funeral oration spoken by the Rev. Mr. Grylls over the cenotaph Of
Sir John Constantine in Constantine Parish Church. These omissions,
however, may be remedied if you will ask the publishers for another
edition.

Now, if it be objected against some of the adventures of Sir John
Constantine that they are extravagant, or against some of his notions
that they are fantastic, I answer that this book attempts to describe
a man and not one of these calculable little super men who, of late,
have been taking up so much more of your attention than they deserve.
Students who engage in psychical research, as it is called, often
confess themselves puzzled by the behaviour of ghosts, it appears to
them wayward and trivial. How much more likely are ghosts to be
puzzled by the actions of real men? And we are surely ghosts if we
keep nothing of the blood which sent our fathers like schoolboys to
the crusades.

Lastly, my friend, if you would know anything of the writer who has
so often addressed you under an initial, you may find as much of him
here as in any of his books. Here is interred part, at any rate, of
the soul of the Bachelor Q, in a book which, though it tell of
adventures, I would ask you not to disdain, though you be a boy no
longer. An acquaintance of mine near the Land's End had a
remarkably fine tree of apples--to be precise, of Cox's Orange
Pippins--and one night was robbed of the whole of them. But what,
think you, had the thief left behind him, at the foot of the tree?
Why, a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles.

ARTHUR T. QUILLER-COUCH.

THE HAVEN, FOWEY, October 1st, 1906.

CONTENTS

Chapter.

I. OF THE LINEAGE AND CONDITION OF SIR JOHN CONSTANTINE.

II. I RIDE ON A PILGRIMAGE.

III. I ACQUIRE A KINGDOM.

IV. LONG VACATION.

V. THE SILENT MEN.

VI. HOW MY FATHER OUT OF NOTHING BUILT AN ARMY, AND IN FIVE
MINUTES PLANNED AN INVASION.

VII. THE COMPANY OF THE ROSE.

VIII. TRIBULATIONS OF A MAYOR.

IX. I ENLIST AN ARMY.

X. OF THE DISCOURSE HELD ON BOARD THE "GAUNTLET".

XI. WE FALL IN WITH A SALLEE ROVER.

XII. HOW WE LA